Super teams are not easy to create and even harder to sustain. It’s obviously a challenge for a lot of businesses, and developing a winning culture isn’t going to happen overnight, but with these 5 tips, you can get your business on the path to success:

Set goals, beat them and celebrate it

Follow your core values - when you're hiring and firing!

Recognise and reward employee performance

Be Transparent

Don't sweep anything under the carpet

Every team needs to have a set of shared objectives and goals that everyone in the business can work towards together. These goals should be a variety of both attainable and challenging goals to keep your business driving forward. Reaching goals and objectives as a team creates a sense of accomplishment and inspires people to appreciate the value of teamwork.

Every business has core values however putting them into action is the difficult part. These values need to be more than a page on your website; they need to be part of every aspect of your business, including when you’re hiring and firing.

Don’t let superstars ask for a pay rise – you should always appreciate a superstar’s value in your business and reward them for it; however, not all rewards should be financial. 

Transparency builds trust and confidence both inside and outside of a team; it also encourages cohesion and builds strong, hardworking teams.  To create strong teams, you need to attract strong people and the only way to do this is to create a great culture – transparency does this!

Meetings are usually put in place to discuss opinions and views and to draft and confirm ideas; however, it’s never about the dynamics of the company and current affairs – these topics are usually left in the dark and are only discussed as whispers in the office.

Company dynamics refers to the people, the general environment of the office, people’s thoughts, actions and body language – which is forever changing.

The team dynamic has to be taken seriously in any company and even more so in a start-up if a successful culture and work environment is going to be established.

Why should we discuss team dynamics more?

If you know what's wrong, you know what to fix

If you’re a manager and you know the dynamic of your team, you’ll know what to change and improve. Never presume to know the team dynamic; ask and find out, as it’s never the same for everyone.  People should be able to speak freely about how the team get on and the dynamics of the office.  Once you know how people are feeling, you can take the right steps to make changes and discuss issues. One of the key challenges is to allow people to feel free to open up and be candid with their feedback. People must know that their views will be taken constructively.

If people are on the same page, the company is more aligned

Addressing issues of the people in the company ensures people are on the same page and understand one another.  If there are any disagreements, these can be addressed.

Discussing issues out in the open stops whispering

If an issue is apparent, being open and talking about it in a group encourages people to be honest as opposed to discussing it privately.  Office whispers are never positive and can destroy your company culture and the environment you work in. Creating an open environment where people feel comfortable talking and where they can be honest will add to your company culture in a positive way.

Great leaders care about their team because they understand that their business is its people.  Talking to them about how they feel about their environment, their time and how they feel about the team dynamic enables you (as a manager) to address issues that people may have.  If multiple people have the same issues, you know you need to make some changes.  People could have problems regarding any area of the business, and you may not even know what these are if you don’t ask them.

A healthy company culture focuses on its people and keeping them happy - you can only do this when you know what improvements to make.

Office politics and conflict are inevitable in any team; however, it should never be brushed under the carpet and ignored. Managing conflict and office politics well is key to ensuring that your team stays cohesive and continues to work brilliantly!

Creating and maintaining a super team is difficult and takes a tremendous amount of effort and time; however, the rewards make it worthwhile!

If you need assistance creating an award-winning team, contact Oakstone!